Neptune Aquacontroller Questions???

[bigjohn]

This weekend I inherited a Neptune Aquacontroller from a family member. This thing has been in storage for awhile, but I brought it home and it power right up. The temperature probe seems to be right on but the pH and ORP monitors are (hopefully) way off--pH 6.00 and ORP -001. My test kits say the pH is more like 8.0-8.1.

Anyway, I have absolutely no experience with these things but I would like to resurrect this dinosaur.

I found and downloaded the manual from neptunesys.com, and found that the software version is 1.17. I believe that the latest version for this device is 1.50.

Can the pH and ORP probes be cleaned and calibrated??

What should I use to calibrate the probes??

[N38MD]

bigjohn,

Were the PH and ORP probe tips kept in storage solution? If not, they will need to be replaced, they cannot be allowed to dry out.

If they were stored correctly, yes they can be calibrated. For the PH probe, you will need to get calibration solutions of 7 & 10. You can also get ORP calibration solution. The manual has instruction for calibrating. Just remember that when it comes to ORP, it's best to use it to watch trends, either up or down and not to try to get to a particular value. ORP monitors are not very accurate but will tell you if water quality is going up or down.

As far as cleaning, Tom posted a great probe cleaning procedure a while back, try doing a search. HTH

Ron

[Geoff]

the most recent software release is 1.6. i do not know if you can upgrade the software or not.

i do not use an ORP at all on mine.

G~

[bigjohn]

Looks like I need new probes. This was in the junk bin, so I thought that I could salvage a really cheap pH probe. The odd thing is that it actually appeared to work when I first connected it pH ~8.1, but now it is a constant 6.0.


Will it read correctly with just a pH probe connected??

What exactly does the ORP tell me anyway?? Oxygen Reduction Potential??

[N38MD]

Oxidation Reduction Potential. It describes a rather complicated chemical reaction having to do with the net gain and loss of electrons. An ORP monitor detects those changes and displays the results in millivolts.

The short answer is that it measures the ability of the water to sanitize itself (the potential)- it does not directly measure how clean the water is as a lot of people think.

Natural seawater has a wide range of ORP, anywhere from about 200mv in a nutrient rich area to over 450mv in an oxygen rich shallow reef.

Again, don't get hung up on the numbers. You could have a reading of 250mv and have a very healthy tank. In my opinion, its another great tool to monitor your tank - if your ORP is usually 300mv and you see it start to go down and stay down, you may have a problem. BTW, water changes will cause the ORP to go down!

Ok, this post is long enough. HTH

Ron

[bigjohn]

Thanks for a great explanation!

[N38MD]

I was kinda hoping Tom would jump in with a real explanation, I love his posts on this kind of stuff